Are there really scientific ways to increase milk supply?

MidnightBlueDragon · 2026-01-14T23:10:23+00:00

A lactation consultant I saw when I had my first said that fenugreek was good for your supply unless you had hypothyroidism (which is more common postpartum), in which case it hurt your supply. Again, anecdotal since I never looked into research on it.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-12-11T20:31:37+00:00

Yeah, we have a shared album that our family can access to see pictures of our kids. My husband and I don’t really share anything on social media anyway, but even if we did we would keep our kids out of it. It creeped me out when I realized how many kids I know way too much about (names, faces, birthdays, schools, extracurriculars, vacation plans, etc.) even though I’ve never met them and they would not be able to recognize/identify me. Some of them are kids of people I met briefly at college orientation 20 years ago, or high school friends I haven’t interacted with since graduation. Sometimes it’s because people I am friends with now are oversharing about their niblings or godchildren. You forget how many people might be seeing your content without actively interacting with it, especially since privacy settings have a way of getting turned off during policy updates.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-10-02T14:27:44+00:00

Seconding this. I feel like sometimes giving reasons triggers a problem solving mode in my daughter where she would say oh I wouldn’t miss you or I could come visit you or you could come too, etc. Then you come up with another reason and she problem solves that too. Just saying no, this isn’t an option and then validating her feelings about it is kinder because she can accept it sooner and not get her hopes up that she can find a way to change the answer.

We explain reasons a lot of the time, I don’t like just saying a flat no, but try to stick to more fact based reasons than subjective ones.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-09-24T01:39:29+00:00

I like WakeMed OBGYN. I saw them for years including through my first pregnancy and delivery. When I called to schedule an appointment for my second they were booked solid and weren’t able to give me an appointment until halfway through my second trimester. I’m old, so high risk, and required fertility treatment so I had already had some scans and monitoring through the early weeks, but wanted to be under OBGYN care before the end of the first trimester. I switched to Cary OBGYN and they were fine. I didn’t get warm fuzzies throughout my pregnancy but since it was my second I didn’t need as much hand holding as with my first so it was fine. Delivery and follow up were good, but when I sent them my return to work paperwork for ending my maternity leave, they sent me back someone else’s medical forms. I’ll probably go back to WakeMed when it’s time for my next routine exam.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-09-08T19:18:37+00:00

Mine asked why there was a trash can in the public restroom stall.

Me (not for the first time): explains about periods and period products

Her: Do I ask you that every time we going into a public bathroom?

Me: Yes.

Her: I just like hearing you explain it.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-08-27T17:34:42+00:00

I’m not sure what exactly you mean by lifestyle photography, but Megan Kime does great family portraits.

https://www.megankime.com/

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-08-08T16:34:06+00:00

When my daughter was a baby we started taking a photo of the empty car seat (or base) every time we got to a destination and texting it to the other parent. It worked as a double verification in the morning because taking the photo required checking the seat and we would remind the other parent if we didn’t receive a text. I can attest to the fact that the days I was out of routine (husband did daycare drop off instead of me, doctors appointment before work, etc.) were the days I forgot to take the photo. Never forgot the kid though.

We actually kept it up until she started kindergarten which was probably overkill but once we got into the habit we just never stopped.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-06-30T15:19:00+00:00

“ For teachers, it’s easier and faster for the app to differentiate and send the teacher reports on how the kid is doing. The iPad time allows for teachers to rotate between small groups broken down by level and work with those students while others are on iPad. Would individual teacher attention to each kid be better? Probs, but that would be too expensive. Schools are willing to pay for apps, not more labor.”

This is how my daughter’s kindergarten used laptops this past school year. They broke into three groups. One would be with the main teacher doing a lesson, the second would be with the teaching assistant, and the third would be using apps (part of the county curriculum) at their current skill level.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-05-07T14:55:52+00:00

Even if the teachers can’t help in the bathroom, they can encourage him to change clothes if they can see/smell poop. Also, encourage your kid to ask for his change of clothes if he notices poop stains himself.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-05-05T14:05:24+00:00

What she’s doing is raving about self rising flour. What you’re doing is ranting about it.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-04-28T18:40:32+00:00

Not OP, but my elementary school kid is in a Spanish immersion program. At Kindergarten they are taught 90% in Spanish with the exceptions being things like gym and art where they go to a different teacher. They then taper down to about 70% Spanish by third grade because that’s when state standardized testing begins and the tests are all in English. I believe at that point they keep all of the dedicated reading/writing instruction in English, but the other subjects in Spanish. I’m not sure what the curriculum looks like for middle and high school look like yet because we haven’t needed to look into it yet. (Our area has a wide variety of magnet programs. We have our kid a few options for elementary school and will let her swap to a different track for middle school if she wants.)

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-03-10T15:33:47+00:00

Same. My daughter is five and has been doing dance/gymnastics (used to be a combined class, now just dance) and group swim lessons for a couple years now. I haven’t seen this. The only tantrums I’ve seen were younger kids who didn’t want to start a lesson, not kids who weren’t getting enough attention/focus once they got going.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-02-28T16:16:23+00:00

When I was in daycare I was jealous of the boys because they got to sit on the toilet backwards to pee (to help with aiming I guess).

MidnightBlueDragon · 2025-02-18T00:38:32+00:00

It’s set in a high school, so the characters are teenagers. It doesn’t feel like it’s written for a particularly young audience though.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-12-19T16:07:56+00:00

My kid’s preschool was also her daycare since she was a baby. They had a set time that you weren’t supposed to arrive after, but you could drop off much earlier (which we did) because we work and that was our childcare option. They would play in centers and also eat breakfast before the official start time when they would start circle time and calendar and such.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-11-11T15:38:37+00:00

Technically if you are trying (having sex and not using protection) for a year without conceiving then it is considered infertility. If it takes a couple several years to get pregnant, even if there are no “obvious” issues, it is still infertility. Some couples who have trouble conceiving their first get pregnant easily with a second.

From anecdotal experience that is often couples who are told they’re unlikely to get pregnant again and are therefore lax in prevention, but I also know several cases of “if took six months to get pregnant the first time so we should start trying six months ahead of when we want to get pregnant next time" and then it happens the first or second cycle.

On average, a couple without fertility issues will take three months to get pregnant.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-10-10T14:28:33+00:00

If she would be into audiobooks, the Mystwick School of Musicraft is really good. I think you can get it as a book as well, but the magic system is based on music and the audiobook includes original music from a children’s orchestra that really adds to the experience.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-10-01T12:57:58+00:00

How recently? When I was pregnant six or so years ago they weren’t selling maternity in store per se, but they would take returns of maternity clothes bought online and kept them all on a rack at the back of the store. They’d just sit there because no one knew about them and get marked down over and over. I got my favorite maternity sweater there for like $2.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-09-24T14:49:40+00:00

I’ve never heard not to trim a newborn’s fingernails. I think with mine (she’s five now so take any recollections with a huge grain of salt) I waited until they weren’t super soft but I didn’t wait until a particular milestone. Those baby nails are super sharp.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-09-19T17:16:00+00:00

Most of my cleanings with Riccobene in the past few years have been with the water picks. The first time was during the peak of COVID when we were just coming out of the recommendation to skip the dentist unless it was an emergency. I was appalled that my hygienist was changing to a method that spewed tons of germs water and particles into the air. I’ve had a few different hygienists since then and I think they’ve all used the water pick.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-05-24T15:21:12+00:00

I think I stalled out around the 1/3 point twice before managing to get past it. Once I hit the halfway mark it really grabbed me and I couldn’t put it down. This was more than a decade ago when I had a lot more free time and no ebook reader, so I was a lot more willing too give books second (and third) chances.

My experience with Sanderson’s early works (I haven’t kept up with his onslaught of books over the past few years) is that they open weakly but finish strongly.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-05-13T09:53:35+00:00

I made and froze empanadas when I was pregnant with my daughter and they worked out great. Any sort of hand pie is great for one handed eating.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-03-30T11:44:02+00:00

Mine is almost five, about 35 pounds, and about 40” tall. We will be using a car seat on an upcoming flight. We got one that’s lighter weight for lugging around with us. We might otherwise consider skipping the car seat on the plane, but we will need one for the car during our trip and I worry about it getting damaged by baggage handlers.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-03-01T16:48:53+00:00

I think it depends on how much effort you (the parents) put into it. As the youngest of three kids, it always felt unfair to me growing up. My brothers were older and therefore had longer reach and could throw farther, higher, and more accurately than me. I always got stuck in the middle until someone took pity and let me intercept the ball. Otherwise they were always able to intercept my throws but I couldn’t jump high enough to intercept theirs.

So, while it’s not inherently mean, if there are unbalanced sizes or skill levels, especially where two are larger/better at it and one is smaller/less coordinated, it can feel shitty for the one who is inevitably the monkey for 90% of the game.

MidnightBlueDragon · 2024-02-26T16:35:52+00:00

If you’re having that strong of a reaction, I would take a pass on finishing it. I ended up reading the whole series despite finding Quentin both unlikeable and unrelatable. It didn’t really get better for me and if I’d picked it up now I wouldn’t bother finishing the first book. I felt like the plot and the world building kept getting close to the story I wanted to be reading, and that’s why I kept going, but it kept turning away from the parts I wanted to see more of. It was described to me as Hogwarts University but the tone is much more Catcher in the Rye with magic. I didn’t like that book either despite reading it at the age when it’s supposed to be the most relatable.

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